Have you ever asked your students how deeply they feel attached to the place where they come from?
Not simply where they were born; but the place that shaped their childhood memories, their sense of belonging, their idea of “home.”
It might be a valuable starting point for reflection if you are teaching a class of Entrepreneurship or Family Business students. And, perhaps, an unexpectedly powerful one.
In my article titled “Understanding place attachment in family firms: a multiple case study from rural Italy”, published in the Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, my co-author and I wanted to understand how place attachment originates and develops within family businesses.
Why is place attachment special in family businesses?
Place attachment is the term used to describe the emotional connections that people or groups form with a specific area that is infused with meaning, identity, and a feeling of belonging.
If a business is attached to its “place,” it may form special ties that promote pro-environmental practices and strong involvement in the community in which it operates.
For associations of enterprises, local incubators, and family business networks, this is not a marginal issue: attachment can shape long-term orientation, sustainability choices and community engagement.
Family businesses (those businesses owned and managed by one or two families) are a specific type of firm, which have been found to experience even stronger attachment to their place, usually due to their long business and family history there.
In these firms, business and biography intertwine.
What drives place attachment in family businesses?
It’s not only one single factor that keeps family firms attached to their place: it’s a multitude of elements and dimensions that interact with each other across time and space.
It starts with one’s childhood memories, having played around the family business (which, in most cases, coincided with the family house) since early years.
It connects to the legacy of the family– the generations before us, and their emotional attachment to the place. It’s something that family members feel – other’s emotions – and place attachment, just like other things, can be transmitted to one family member to another.
And then there are the family gatherings. Those moments, in the Tuscan country side, where all the extended family comes together to share a meal. As movies depicts very well, it’s not just a meal: it is a reunion.
Last, there is the business dimension. Having helped since one’s childhood, continuing, in most cases, to work part-time in the business, keeps family members revolving around it.
Over time, place becomes part of identity. And identity becomes part of the business.
Teaching opportunities: reflecting on family roots for value creation
For lecturers in entrepreneurship, coordinators of PhD programmes, and organisations supporting family enterprises, place attachment in family businesses offers a concrete reflective learning opportunity.
Courses on SMEs and family businesses could incorporate activities that encourage students to reflect on their attachment to the territory.
This would involve becoming aware of what these connections signify to them and understanding how they impact their life choices.
Students could also engage in discussions with their parents and grandparents about the local roots of the family and the family firm, if they own one, and how feelings of attachment have evolved among family members.
For doctoral programmes, this may also open methodological conversations about qualitative inquiry, intergenerational narratives and place-based perspectives in business research.
Ultimately, this reflection would foster a deeper awareness of personal and family roots.
And awareness can become strategy.
Students and entrepreneurs can transform this understanding into a unique point of distinction for the family business and communicate it externally to highlight its uniqueness — not as a marketing slogan, but as an authentic, lived dimension of the firm.
If you are interested in exploring this theme with your students or members, I offer a workshop dedicated to place attachment, family roots and value creation in family firms.